Hula, history & Hitachi: Moanalua Gardens

Japanese visitors to Hawai’i may recognize Moanalua Gardens as the home to one of their country’s most famous corporate symbols — Hitachi’s monkeypod tree — while O’ahu residents may think of the site as a pleasant park leading into Kamananui Valley, preserved from the path of H-3 some 40 years ago. But I’ll wager very few visitors from the Mainland have found their way to this oasis mauka of the Honolulu airport, and that’s a shame.

Jeanne Cooper / Special to SFGate

A dancer walks toward the summer cottage built by the former Prince Lot, in what’s now Moanalua Gardens. An annual hula festival on the site pays tribute to the man who became King Kamehameha V.

Among the preserve’s attractions is the charming Victorian gingerbread summer cottage of Prince Lot Kapuāiwa, who reigned as King Kamehameha V from 1863 to 1872. Built in the 1850s, the cottage’s size has expanded and its location moved over the years; today it sits by a small taro patch, close to a koi pond, large banyan trees and another vintage structure, Chinese Hall. Within eyeshot of both buildings is a hula mound — an elevated grassy area on which dancers traditionally performed. This one will host the 33rd annual Prince Lot Hula Festival on July 17, 2010.

The islands’ largest non-competitive hula event, the festival takes place in an area once famed for its chanters, an integral part of hula kahiko. The festival takes its name and the rest of its inspiration from the fact that Prince Lot used to entertain his guests here with hula dancers — at a time when powerful missionaries were actively suppressing the “heathen” art form. (That was years, by the way, before the reign of King David Kalākaua, 1874-1891, who’s generally credited with restoring hula to the Hawaiian people, and who’s honored by the annual Merrie Monarch Hula Festival in Hilo.)

Today Prince Lot’s blue cottage is only viewable from outside (for safety reasons), but it’s easy to see the roofed lanai that connects its three parts; the lanai around the original unit is thought to be where Prince Lot’s dancers performed. This year, 12 invited hālau will share their hula on the nearby mound, named Kamaipu’upa’a and dedicated in 1980 as a reminder of the hula mounds Moanalua was once known for. The free festival, which requests donations to help cover expenses, will also include other cultural activities and food and drinks for sale.

The name and location of the Prince Lot/King Kamehameha V cottage was the subject of my June 20 photo quiz, with bonus points for those who knew about the Hitachi monkeypod tree also on site. Only those with Honolulu roots got this one right: Recalling the area as “a beautiful park with huge monkeypod/banyan trees,” a reader who goes by brew808 noted, “I used to play there often as a kid — lots of time in the nearby stream and running around on the expansive open lawns.”

Eric Kem of Honolulu used to live in Salt Lake, “right next to the Gardens,” and commented, “I remember the cottage from walking around, but I had to ask my wife who built it. We like walking around there on weekdays when it’s not too crowded. We also enjoy taking our dog to the dog park that is located right next door. We’ve never gone to the festival. I’ll keep it in mind the next time the festival comes around.”

Like Kem and brew808, Ann Slaby of Berkeley recognized the cottage and the Hitachi symbol not pictured in the quiz photo but seen below. According to the Japanese company’s Web page for the iconic monkeypod tree, it’s about 130 years old, 25 meters tall and 30 meters wide, with a trunk girth of about 7 meters (in American measurements, that’s … really big. You do the math.) Slaby commented:

The many large trees remind me of what Oahu was like while I was growing up. The unfortunate consequence of development and overdevelopment is the ruination of nature. And that environment is why people love Hawaii, even though much was imported. I also observed that the more the environment was destroyed, the greater was the creation of fantasy.

On a happier note, a wahi pana (significant site) that could have been traversed by a state highway or developed by its private owners remains open to the public, as Moanalua Gardens. The nonprofit Moanalua Gardens Foundation, founded 40 years ago, “is committed to preserving and perpetuating the history, native culture and environment of Hawai’i through education, celebration and stewardship of Kamananui Valley and Moanalua Gardens.”

Jeanne Cooper / Special to SFGate

Hitachi’s choice of this symmetrical monkeypod tree in Moanalua Gardens as its corporate icon has made it a popular destination for Japanese tourists.

Jeanne Cooper / Special to SFGate

Kumu hula Vicky Holt Takamine chants as her dancers perform on the hula mound at Moanalua Gardens; they’ll take part in the 33rd annual Prince Lot Hula Festival July 17.